Liam Neeson: «I cried on the set of Kenobi»
Liam Neeson’s latest film released in Italian cinemas is the thriller Memory, with Monica Bellucci. He participated in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney +.
turned 70 last summer. But I prefer the French way of counting: so I’m 60+10 years old. Sounds good. I made a movie with Anthony Hopkins almost 40 years ago! I love that guy. He took care of all of us. Every time I see him we hug and I say: “How are you, Tony?”. And he: «Very good. They haven’t discovered me yet.
” He means it! And honestly, I think so too! I still enjoy wearing all those clothes that I would never wear in real life, trying to be someone else but also myself. I love James Cagney’s definition of acting. To some naive person who asked him how best to play a scene, he replied: “Listen, darling, you come into the room, plant your feet and tell the truth.”
And this is what really happens, summed up in a nutshell. As Clint Eastwood once told me, “All you have to do is move around the set and say lines. What’s the problem?”. This is also true, but it remains a joy for me.
I love being with crews. I also like being with the actors, but even more with the workers, who are there setting up the lights and laying cables, all just to make you look good. It gives a great boost.
When they call you to the set you have to go straight away because there are 80 people waiting for you. I’ve been in a couple of situations where the star was 20-25 minutes late. She really bothered me.
Rolling my eyes I told him he was being fucking rude. After Schindler’s List I received a couple of calls from Barbara Broccoli for the role of James Bond starting from GoldenEye.
They never officially offered it to me though. They were also considering other actors. Even though I had little chance of being chosen, I walked around the living room with John Barry music in my head, acting like I had a gun in my hand. All of this was driving my future wife crazy. She kept telling me: “They won’t choose you!”.
I’m trying to take more risks and trust others. I got a call from Donald Glover, who wanted me in an episode of his comedy drama Atlanta. At first I was against it, and I had my reasons.
Donald wanted me to play an episode that involved me over 40 years ago. A friend of hers had been raped by a black boy (in 2019 she gave an interview to the Independent saying that as a young woman she had hoped to kill an African American as revenge for that rape, sparking endless controversy, ed.). I had a surge of racism.
But then I thought, “What the fuck are you doing? With these thoughts you become an animal.” I got over this, but then the newspapers marched on us.
After two or three calls, Donald assured me that everything would be fine. I trusted him because he has enormous talent. At the time he was working with Phoebe Waller-Bridge – I had just watched his Fleabag and loved it – and she thought it was a good idea too. But I said to myself, well, but I’m from a different generation.
But here was this wonderful black artist asking me to please do this show. Yes, we will talk about race and everything will be fine. And I thought: screw it, do it. And we did it.
Today I get emotional about things that I never thought could move me. I cried on the set of Obi-Wan Kenobi, filming my secret cameo with Ewan McGregor, with whom I had filmed Star Wars – The Phantom Menace, 25 years ago, in front of blue screens, in the infancy of CGI.
I had two lines, he was sitting on a camel in a quarry outside of Los Angeles, and we were directed by a very talented director, Deborah Chow. We hadn’t seen Ewan and I for years and we shed a tear.
It really happened. All because a lot of time had passed, we had lived many experiences and here we were again, dressed in those now familiar costumes, with wigs, fake beards and all the paraphernalia that we knew well. I thought: We’re still telling the saga that George (Lucas) created so beautifully in 1977. It was fantastic. I liked it. I have to admit, I really liked it. Without a doubt I’ve had an intense life, don’t you think?
